Norway Has A Research Lab That's Inside A Glacier

Nearly 700 feet (more than 200 meters) under the Svartisen
glacier in northern Norway, researchers are huddled together
underground.

In the world's only lab located inside one of these giant hunks
of ice, they are carrying out some of the best experiments on the
movement and composition of glaciers ever done.

The lab, operated by the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy
Directorate, is located above the
Arctic Circle.

It started out as a tunnel for hydropower, but then researchers
persuaded the hydropower company to dig out one small extra
tunnel just for them and created a valuable in-site lab.

Normally to get access to the base of a glacier, it is necessary
to
drill a borehole through the ice. Doing so involves a huge
logistics operation and also means that researchers can work only
where the surface ice isn't too badly cracked.

Using the new lab, researchers can visit exactly the same
location at the glacier bed each time — and it's much easier for
them to get access to the base.

But the in-site lab comes with its own set of challenges.

Icy challenges

To access the remote workspace, researchers have to fly to a
small northern Norwegian town, then drive for hours, take a
ferry, walk along a dirt road and up a mountain.

From the entrance to the tunnel, it's another mile-plus trek up a
set of stairs to the lab. It's a one-hour walk in total when
conditions are good, but when there is fresh snow to trudge
through on the way to the entrance, the slog can take four to
five hours. [See
images of the glacier lab .]

To get to different parts of the glacier bed to study
how the ice slides over the rock beneath, the researchers
melt additional 30- to 40-foot-long (9 to 12 m) tunnels using hot
water. "The water is heated up in a large hot-water heater that
is in the main tunnel. The hot water is then pumped up the ice
tunnel," said Miriam Jackson, a senior research scientist and
glaciologist with the directorate.

Melting a glacier from the inside out isa slow process — creating
one ice tunnel takes around 24 to 48 hours.

Working under the glacier instead of the cold surface protects
the researchers from some challenges, but it's still a tough
environment.

"Some people find the stress of being in the tunnel system a
challenge, and although this is unusual, tempers can occasionally
fray, especially for groups that have limited experience of
glaciological fieldwork," Jackson said.

Seismic signals and sliding

Once in the lab, the scientists continue their work in trying to
get a read on how glaciers move and how they drain throughout the
year, as well as how
glaciers impact sea level rise by contributing melt water to
the oceans. The laboratory is also being used to test and develop
theories about the
seismic signals — similar to those measured from earthquakes
— that moving glaciers send.

"We can put the seismic instruments in the tunnel system, they
are a lot nearer to the base of the ice, whereas normally
scientists must put the instruments on the surface, even when
they are studying what is happening at the base," Jackson told
OurAmazingPlanet.

The team only does research in the wintertime to avoid meltwater,
and the research area has room for up to six people sharing four
bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom and a shower in addition to three
laboratories, a walk-in freezer, a workshop and a water heater.

Most of the time there are only three to four people in the lab
for a period of six to seven days between November and April.

Recent experiments measured the resistance to sliding at the base
of the glacier and found that most of the resistance is due to
the friction between the debris-rich ice and the bedrock — a
finding that was a surprise. Previously researchers thought that
ice flow past particular obstacles in the bedrock provided most
of the resistance to friction of the glacier.

The ice tunnel labs provide the researchers with more than just a
research site, though.

"One of the most surprising things is the beauty," Jackson said.
"Each time we melt out an ice tunnel it is equally entrancing."

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